Alice and the Bird Lady

Alice and the Bird Lady

written and illustrated by Jane Grant Tentas 2002

Since Spring is around the corner we've been waking up to birdsongs and it's lovely!  There's only a couple birds I can identify by their sounds, but they all feel like familiar voices to me.  This little story was inspired by living on Block Island (off the coast of Rhode Island) and the real life character of Elizabeth Dickens who collected birds and taught the local children about them.  Her naturalist inspiration lives on through Tentas pictures and story.

Grandfather Todd of Old Cape Cod

"Grandfather Todd was very old.  He had been born on Cape Cod a long, long time ago.  He was so old that he could recall the clipper ships that used to sail from wharves of the old Cape scores of years ago.  So old, indeed, that he could tell tales of the big four-master schooners which cruised the world over, and of the whaling ships and fishing fleets which braved the storms at sea, but brought in their precious cargoes to the safe, snug harbors on Cape Cod Bay."

Grandfather Todd of Old Cape Cod

Joseph E. Hanson

illustrated by Jean Porter 1959

On old fashioned sort of book with cozy stories about Grandfather Todd and his grandchildren Gregg and Kate.  He has bright blue eyes and a big white beard.  He is the sort of grandfather who makes paintings come alive and goes fishing with a rod only fitted with a piece of bread to feed the fish, and plays an old violin for the birds.  What makes the stories so lovely are the patient descriptions of the countryside and animals, of mealtime and pony rides, and just a winking sort of magic.

Cranberry Thanksgiving

Cranberry Thanksgiving

Wende and Harry Devlin 1971

The Cranberry series was written and illustrated by the husband and wife team Wende and Harry Devlin in the 1970's and 1980's.  This one is the only one we have in our collection, but I remember some of the others from when I was a kid. They take place in New England and feature a girl named Maggie who lives with her grandmother at the edge of a cranberry bog.  Her grandmother is so famous for her secret cranberry bread recipe that she has to hide it in their house.  When guests come for Thanksgiving dinner, grandmother learns not to judge a book by it's cover!

The Pumpkin Heads

In the late 1700's the Reverend Samuel Peters (a loyalist) left the Puritan colony in Connecticut and returned to England.  There, in his frustration, he wrote a General History of Connecticut full of untrue stories that were generally unflattering to the colonists that drove him out.  This book, about the townsfolk of New Haven who MUST find a replacement for their "cutting cap" (a standard to cut all of the men and boys' hair to the same length), is based on one of his stories.  "Pumpkin Head" hardly seems like the most derogatory thing you could call someone, but maybe in Puritan New England is was quite the insult!  And the story portrays the leaders and residents as being pedantic and silly. 

This is also a fun book to display during Autumn with it's black and orange design!

The Pumpkin Heads

adapted and illustrated by A.K. Roche 1968